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Framing Nature

How can the conservation sector – and all nature lovers – seek to encourage our better selves and those of the wider public? Framing Nature (and Common Cause for Nature before it) seeks to explore this question and find practical, unifying techniques for doing so. We do this in the firm knowledge that we can create a greener, fairer, more wildlife rich world if we work together.

PIRC’s follow-up project to Common Cause for Nature

We all share values that are associated with justice, compassion and environmental concern, and we also all share values associated with image, competition and self-interest. These two sets of values are psychologically in conflict. This means that reading about the beauty of nature – or the experience of being in a park – can engage environmental values and at the same time suppress self-interested or materialistic values. It also means that being encouraged to think about profit and image will suppress environmental concern.

How can the conservation sector – and all nature lovers – seek to encourage our better selves and those of the wider public? Framing Nature (and Common Cause for Nature before it) seeks to explore this question and find practical, unifying techniques for doing so. We do this in the firm knowledge that we can create a greener, fairer, more wildlife rich world if we work together.

The project is in its second phase.

Phase 2: Framing Nature

Framing Nature builds and expands on the findings of Common Cause for Nature and is focused on practical advice and implementation. The project aims to bring the sector together through:

Providing tools and resources to enable conservation practitioners to understand and apply framing and values in relation to their work

Providing real-time support and advice to partners

Piloting new approaches to engaging the values associated with our better selves through engagement with conservation.

Get in touch

If you’re interested in a workshop or would like to find out more about Framing Nature contact Richard: .

Phase 1: Common Cause for Nature

Thirteen UK conservation organisations, including WWF and RSPB, came together in 2012 to commission this project. Tom Crompton of WWF-UK, Ruth Smyth of RSPB and Catrina Lennox of MSC were key to initiating the project which was subsequently led by PIRC. Original linguistic analysis was carried out by academics at Lancaster and Essex Universities of six months of external NGO communications. Through this analysis, and supplemented with input from interviews, workshops and surveys, Common Cause for Nature explores the values the sector promotes in its communications, campaigns and activities.

By learning from what works, and reforming what doesn’t, the sector can ensure its work cultivates the values that inspire lasting action.

The research built on the work of Common Cause. Common Cause: The Case for Working with our Cultural Values, was written by Tom Crompton and published in 2010 by COIN, CPRE, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and WWF-UK and has since led to extensive debate within the third sector.

Latest Framing Nature posts:

Climate change is featuring in this election like it has never featured in any British election before. Barely mentioned in previous election cycles, this year we have seen it front and centre of manifesto pledges, and Channel 4 hosting a climate debate for the first time. Awareness and concern about climate change is now at an all time high, and we are at a critical fork in the road: We vote for a government that will act on climate change, or we don’t and face the consequences.

For many campaigners, this is also a critical moment to make sure we are talking about climate change in the right way. Specifically, it’s about putting global justice into our frames, and not allowing the debate to focus so narrowly on emissions targets. It’s about framing climate change with reference to historical injustices, such as colonialism, acknowledging that those who are most affected around the world are the least responsible, and advocating solutions that redistribute power and centre the communities on the frontline.

But it’s not necessarily straightforward to talk about climate change in this way. Read more

Catastrophic heatwaves, devastating droughts, deadly wildfires and extreme storms. In 2018, the world saw glimpses of what the future could be without urgent action to solve the climate crisis.

But everywhere, people are coming together to organise for real climate solutions. More than ever, we need to be fighting to win, to shift the narrative, and to build a massive movement for climate justice.

The Framing Climate Justice Project aims to strengthen the movement for climate justice in the UK. We want to use the project to build a more aligned community of activists and campaigners, and to improve how we are communicating about climate change and its causes and impacts. Read more

Creating and maintaining a sustainable, wildlife-rich world requires active, concerned citizens and a political system capable of rising to the challenge. Governments, businesses and the public will need the space and motivation to make the right choices. The UK conservation sector is large and well-resourced yet, as the recent State of Nature report attests, biodiversity is still in decline. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

Where is the public concern and political will to address these issues?

In 2012, thirteen UK conservation organisations – including WWF-UK, the John Muir Award, RSPB and CPRE – came together to commission an analysis of the values they promote in their work. Led by PIRC, academic researchers from Lancaster University, Royal Holloway, and Essex University carried out innovative linguistic analysis of six months of external communications of these organisations. The analysis was supplemented by interviews, surveys and workshop discussion with those in the conservation sector. Today sees the release of the resulting report.